Wednesday 30 April 2008

Boy In A Box On Violet Hill

It is the first of May, and David Blaine is still alive. Damn.

I don't simply check Reuters for news of his demise on the first of every month - that would be mean. I just got my hopes up today because I thought he was doing a Houdini-style stunt tonight and I was - rather morbidly - hoping he'd fail dismally. He always looks smug, and whilst I didn't really wish him dead, I did hope he'd have to halt proceedings and be dramatically and humiliatingly rescued from self-inflicted peril. I'm not sure sitting in a giant fish-tank counts as 'peril,' and that's all he usually does. Not unless it's a tank full of sharks and he's bleeding, (or one full of Wags, and he's covered in that new chocolate Lynx - whichever you consider more perilous. Though the second would be a rather unexpected aquarium circumstance.)

His latest illusion was even more pathetic. He 'has broken the world record for holding his breath.' To make it even less thrilling, he 'performed' this trick on a live broadcast of The Oprah Winfrey Show. That's about as avant-garde as church flowers.

From davidblaine.com (which I resent having visited, so consider yourselves fortunate that I have spared you the need.)

"David set a new world record Wednesday, April 30th, 2008 for holding his breath for an astonishing 17 minutes and 4 seconds."

That's quite a long time actually, and had he done it whilst underwater; surrounded by Cheryl Cole sharks and bleeding chocolate, then I would have found it reasonably impressive.

My hands-down favourite David Blaine story comes from the time he was sat in a glass box in London. For his 'Above the Below' show, he was aiming to last 44 days without food (though why this counts as an illusionists stunt I don't know. Not sure that people in Africa would be too happy about it. Try telling them that they should stop complaining about being hungry because 'David Blaine has made it trendy.') Anyway - there he was - fasting, trying to look intense and dedicated as he defended the principle of the whole business when people said it was pointless. A certain element of the public had almost begun to take him seriously too...until one marvellous human being initiated the best magician-related comedic moment since Caroline Ahern dolled herself up as Mrs Merton and asked Debbie McGee "What first attracted [her] to the millionaire Paul Daniels."

This time it was not a cheeky question that made me proud to be British, but a glorious prank, whereby someone attached a Big Mac to a remote-controlled aeroplane, and flew it around his head.

Blaine-in-a-box. (Not to be confused with Jack-in-a-boxes. They are far more entertaining - though also hold nothing more than a clown.)


As well as David Blaine's world record attempt, the other thing launched this month is the new Coldplay album. Despite rumours of a split they have come back with Viva la Vida, produced by Brian Eno. As part of the publicity for the new album, Coldplay are releasing 'Violet Hill' - the first song from their new album - on free download from their website this week. I really like it, especially the nod to John Lennon in the line "I don't want to be a soldier." Should be really interesting to see how Eno's influence affects the overall feel of the record - as he did some really good work on The Joshua Tree for U2 (which was a good album, despite the bands' current downturn in media support.)

Coldplay - Violet Hill - Free Download

Chris Martin.

What people don't realise is that he's developed bat-like radar - and he'd just caught that mic seconds before it hit his forehead: with his eyes closed. (Buffy did that with a sword in a fight with Angelus in season one or two. I remember because I liked Spike, and preferred David Boreanez in evil-vampire mode, rather than as the sulky demon-with-a-soul.)

Coldplay have recently had to endure speculation that they had been "conducting weird musical experiments." I think this is all ludicrous codswallop. Chris Martin is in no way responsible for Cher.

...Though I do know that all the bits they snip off of her, they then stick onto Pete Burns. Fact.



I've once more failed to keep my promise of limiting myself with this thing, at least until I fix the notifications. Apologies: once more. If you've read this far, I'm guessing you would have read it anyway. I should have apologised at the start, so it shows up in the notification and is seen by all the people who shall curse Facebook for not providing them with more interesting news.
But as those people don't read this - I don't much care what they think anyway. x

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